Saudi Arabia Culture & Language

Saudi culture rests on three things: Islam, the Bedouin inheritance, and the oil wealth that transformed the country within a single lifetime.

Poetry

Verse is the prestige art form of Arabia and always has been. Nabati poetry, composed in colloquial Arabic, is still performed and competed at, and a televised poetry contest draws audiences that elsewhere would go to a talent show. Poets are quoted in ordinary conversation.

Coffee and the majlis

Qahwa — lightly roasted, cardamom-heavy, served in small handleless cups with dates — is a ceremony with rules: the server pours with the right hand, keeps refilling until you shake the cup, and the whole thing is UNESCO-listed. The majlis, a reception room where matters are brought and settled, is equally listed and equally real.

Falconry and the desert arts

Falconry is a serious and expensive pursuit with its own markets and veterinary care. Camel racing and the camel itself carry enormous cultural weight, and ardah, the sword dance performed with drums and chanted poetry, is the national dance.

Building

Mud-brick in the Najd, seen at Diriyah; coral stone with carved wooden screens in Jeddah; stone and painted interiors in Asir, where the wall paintings made by women are UNESCO-listed.

What has changed, and how fast

Cinemas were banned for thirty-five years and reopened in 2018; concerts, mixed public events and women driving all returned within roughly the same period. A Saudi in their forties has lived through a near-complete reversal of the rules governing public life, and the result is a culture arguing with itself in public in a way it did not a decade ago. Visitors notice the newness of everything — much of the tourism infrastructure is younger than the visa that let them in.

Food

Kabsa spiced rice with lamb or chicken, jareesh, mandi cooked in a pit, flatbread, and dates in dozens of named varieties.

Arabic is the official language, in several regional dialects — Najdi around Riyadh, Hejazi in the west, Gulf Arabic in the east — with Modern Standard Arabic used in writing and broadcasting.

English is widely spoken in the cities, in business, in hotels and by younger Saudis, and signage on main roads and at the airports is bilingual. It thins quickly in small towns and among older people, where some Arabic or a translation app genuinely helps.

Given the size of the expatriate workforce, Urdu, Hindi, Malayalam, Bengali and Tagalog are all widely heard in service settings.

Useful: as-salamu alaykum as a greeting, with wa alaykum as-salam in reply, shukran for thank you, min fadlak for please, inshallah, and afwan for you’re welcome or excuse me.